Systems and methods for ensuring continued access to media of a playlist despite geographic content restrictions

ABSTRACT

Systems and methods are described herein for detecting information that indicates that a user will be traveling from a first geographic location to a second geographic location, and responsively accessing a playlist indicated by a profile of the user that indicates a plurality of streaming media that the user intends to consume. Control circuitry may then compare data corresponding to each streaming media of the plurality of streaming media to a database to determine whether each streaming media of the plurality of streaming media is accessible to the user at the second geographic location, and may determine that a subset of the plurality of media is not accessible to the user at the second geographic location. In response to determining that the subset is not accessible to the user at the second geographic location, the control circuitry may download each media of the subset.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No.15/198,495, filed Jun. 30, 2016, (allowed). The disclosure of which ishereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.

BACKGROUND

In related art, a user may input into an electronic program guide(“EPG”) that the user will be traveling to a different country. The usermay view an EPG screen that lists broadcast schedule informationcorresponding to his home location, and may view a different EPG screenthat lists broadcast schedule information corresponding to the differentcountry, and may make determinations as to whether he wants to recordprogramming that is not available at his destination. The related art,however, is limited to enabling a user to identify content availabilityfrom broadcast program guides, and does not contemplate any informationabout content availability from any source other than broadcast programguides. Moreover, the related art is limited to manual interactivitybetween the user and the EPG, and is labor intensive.

SUMMARY

Systems and methods are provided herein for ensuring access to streamingmedia of a playlist despite geographic content restrictions on thestreaming media. The systems and methods described herein may detectthat a user is to travel to a different geographic location (e.g., byparsing the user's e-mail or calendar to learn of a travel itinerary),and may automatically determine that streaming media that the userenjoys watching is not available at the different geographic location(e.g., due to geography-based content restrictions). The systems andmethods described herein may ensure that the user is able to accessdesired streaming media by locating downloadable versions of thestreaming media and downloading it to user equipment, so that the usercan take the content with him and circumvent an ability to access themedia when the user has arrived at his destination.

To these ends and other ends, in some aspects of the disclosure, mediaguidance application may detect information that indicates that a userwill be traveling from a first geographic location to a secondgeographic location. For example, the media guidance application maylocate an entry in a calendar of a user that indicates that the user isflying from New York, USA to Milan, Italy.

In some embodiments, in response to the detecting (e.g., the detectingof the user traveling to Milan), the media guidance application mayaccess a playlist indicated by a profile of the user that indicates aplurality of streaming media that the user likes or might consume, andmay compare data corresponding to each streaming media of the pluralityof streaming media to entries of one or more databases to determinewhether each streaming media of the plurality of streaming media isaccessible to the user at the second geographic location. For example,the user may subscribe to a media streaming service (e.g., Spotify formusic streaming, Netflix for video streaming), or to an aggregateservice where the user can access streaming media from other mediastreaming services. The user may proactively maintain a list of media hewishes to consume in the future, or a profile may indicate media thatthe user is likely to want to consume in the future. On the basis ofthese lists or on the user's profile, the media guidance application maydetermine that a user enjoys a particular show but will not be able tostream it due to the user's travel, for example, by comparing titlecorresponding to the media to available titles at the destination.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may determine that asubset of the plurality of media is not accessible to the user at thesecond geographic location. For example, if a user enjoys ten videoassets that are available for streaming in New York, but two of them arenot available in Milan, the media guidance application may determinethat the two that are not available in Milan form a subset of media thatis not accessible to the user at the second geographic location. Inresponse to determining that the subset is not accessible to the user atthe second geographic location, the media guidance application maydownload each media of the subset. For example, the media guidanceapplication may locate downloadable versions of the two video assetsfrom an Internet video shop, such as Apple's iTunes shop, and maydownload the downloadable version to a device owned by the user. Thisway, the user may carry the downloaded videos to Milan and consume thedownloaded videos without interruption, as the streaming restriction inMilan will not prevent the user from accessing the downloaded videos.

In some embodiments, when the media guidance application is determiningthe information that indicates that the user will be traveling from thefirst geographic location to the second geographic location, the mediaguidance application may receive an electronic communication that isaddressed to the user, such as an e-mail from an airline company thatincludes an itinerary. The media guidance application may determine thatcontent of the electronic communication references travel (e.g., becausethe electronic communication is from an airline company, or because theelectronic communication indicates a destination and a travel date). Themedia guidance application may then identify, based on the profile, ahome address of the first user (e.g., to learn where the user generallyis able to access streaming content), and may parse the content of theelectronic communication to identify an address other than the homeaddress (e.g., the destination of Milan, Italy). In response toidentifying the address other than the home address, the media guidanceapplication may determine the second geographic location to be theaddress other than the home address (e.g., may learn to check intocontent restrictions in Milan, Italy).

In some embodiments, the plurality of streaming media is associated witha streaming media provider (e.g., Netflix, which provides streamingvideos, or Spotify, which provides streaming music). Moreover, thedatabase may indicate geographic content restrictions for the streamingmedia provider, such as associations between media and various countriesand locations in which the media is not available. The media guidanceapplication may, when determining that the subset of the plurality ofmedia is not accessible to the user at the second geographic location,identify that media of the subset is indicated as restricted at thesecond geographic location in the database.

In some embodiments, the database (e.g., reference database) ordatabases may indicate content that is available at a given geographiclocation from the streaming media provider. In such embodiments, themedia guidance application may determine that the subset of theplurality of media is not accessible to the user at the secondgeographic location by identifying that media of the subset is notindicated as available at the second geographic location in thedatabase.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may, whendownloading each media of the subset, first identify a most suitableuser equipment of a plurality of user equipment owned by the user fortraveling with the user. For example, a portable user equipment with alarge screen and long battery life, such as a tablet, may be selected ifowned by the user. The media guidance application may then download eachmedia of the subset to the most suitable user equipment.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may, whendownloading each media of the subset, first determine a user equipmentof a plurality of user equipment owned by the user to download eachmedia of the subset to based on a setting. For example, the user mayhave designated a user equipment that he prefers traveling with as auser equipment to which media should be downloaded. The media guidanceapplication may then download each media of the subset to the userequipment.

In some embodiments, the user equipment may have insufficient capacityto store each media of the subset (e.g., due to hard drive limitations,such as limited hard drive space on tablet computers). The mediaguidance application may, in this instance, automatically select aportion of the subset for storing based on preferences indicated in theprofile. For example, if the user favors action movies, the limitedstorage space may be used to download action movies instead of othermedia.

In some embodiments, when the user equipment has insufficient capacityto store each media of the subset, the media guidance application maygenerate for display an alert to the user indicating that the userequipment has insufficient capacity to store each media of the subset,and may receive a selection from the user of a portion of the subset forstoring (e.g., of a particular media that the user favors). In responseto receiving the selection, the media guidance application may downloadthe portion of the subset.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may, in response todetermining that the subset is not accessible to the user at the secondgeographic location, proceed to identify respective locations where arespective downloadable file corresponding to each streaming media ofthe plurality of streaming media is available for downloading. Forexample, the media guidance application may determine that somestreaming media is available from a particular online store, such asApple's iTunes store. The media guidance application may automaticallydownload the respective downloadable files if the downloadable files areavailable without payment of money. However, if a respectivedownloadable file requires purchase, the media guidance application mayprompt the user as to whether the user authorizes purchase of therespective downloadable file.

In some embodiments, a media guidance application may receive adestination geographical location to which a user intends to travel(e.g., by way of an electronic communication). The media guidanceapplication may automatically determine whether media content that theuser intends to consume is not accessible for consumption at thedestination geographical location, and may, in response to determiningthat the media content is not accessible for consumption at thedestination geographical location, automatically download the mediacontent to user equipment at the home location.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may receive adestination geographical location to which a user intends to travel, andmay identify a plurality of media assets that are accessible forconsumption at a home location of the user, where the user is likely towant to consume each of the plurality of media assets at the destinationlocation. For example, the plurality of media assets may be a playlist.

The media guidance application may then automatically determine, foreach respective media asset of the plurality of media assets, whetherthe respective media asset is not accessible for consumption at thedestination geographical location, and may add each respective mediaasset that is not accessible for consumption at the destinationgeographical location to a subset. Finally, the media guidanceapplication may invoke a function on the subset, where the functioncomprises at least one of: (1) automatically downloading each mediaasset of the subset to user equipment at the home location, and (2)automatically downloading each media asset of the plurality of mediaassets other than media assets of the subset to the user equipment atthe home location.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may receive adestination geographical location to which a user intends to travel, andmay receive a playlist associated with the user, where the playlistcomprises one or more media asset identifiers, and where each mediaasset identifier corresponds to a respective media asset. The mediaguidance application may automatically determine, for each respectivemedia asset, (1) whether the respective media asset is not accessiblefor consumption at the destination geographical location (e.g., due tolicensing restrictions), and (2) whether the respective media asset isrestricted at the destination geographical location (e.g., due to thecontent being illegal in that country), and may then automaticallydownload, based on the determining, only the respective media assetsthat are both (1) not accessible for consumption at the destinationlocation, (2) not restricted at the destination location.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 depicts an illustrative embodiment of a user interface thatinforms a user about content restrictions at a destination, inaccordance with some embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 2 shows an illustrative embodiment of a display screen that may beused to provide media guidance application listings and other mediaguidance information, in accordance with some embodiments of thedisclosure;

FIG. 3 shows another illustrative embodiment of a display screen thatmay be used to provide media guidance application listings, inaccordance with some embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 4 is a block diagram of an illustrative user equipment (UE) devicein accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 5 is a block diagram of an illustrative media system in accordancewith some embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 6 depicts an illustrative flowchart of a process for ensuringseamless access to restricted streaming media at a destination, inaccordance with some embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 7 depicts an illustrative flowchart of a process for determiningthat the user will be traveling from the first geographic location tothe second geographic location, in accordance with some embodiments ofthe disclosure; and

FIG. 8 depicts an illustrative flowchart of a process for ensuringcontinued access to restricted subset of media at a second geographiclocation, in accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

FIG. 1 depicts an illustrative embodiment of a user interface thatinforms a user about content restrictions at a destination, inaccordance with some embodiments of the disclosure. User equipment 100is depicted as a tablet, but may be any user equipment with anyfunctionality described below with respect to FIGS. 2-5. User equipment100 comprises control circuitry (also described further below withrespect to FIGS. 2-5) which executes a media guidance application (whichagain is described further below with respect to FIGS. 2-5).

The media guidance application may generate for display, either on adisplay of user equipment 100 or on a display of a different device,electronic communication 102, alert 104, selectable option 106, andinformation window 108. Electronic communication 102 may be anyelectronic communication that includes information about a user, such asan e-mail, an MMS or SMS message, calendar information input by a useror automatically populated by the media guidance application, and anyother known electronic communication. Information described as parsed orgleaned from electronic communication 102 may also be obtained from auser profile in accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may detectinformation that indicates that a user will be traveling from a firstgeographic location to a second geographic location. For example, themedia guidance application may determine based on electroniccommunication 102 that a user of user equipment 100 will be flying fromNew York, USA to Milan, Italy. For example, electronic communication 102may be an e-mail from an airline company that includes an itinerary. Insome embodiments, electronic communication 102 may be a message from athird party platform that directly informs the media guidanceapplication that the user will be traveling to the second geographiclocation (e.g., an airline or travel application installed on a user'ssmartphone or tablet). The media guidance application may determine thatcontent of the electronic communication references travel (e.g., becausethe electronic communication is from an airline company, or because theelectronic communication indicates a destination (e.g., destination 110)and a travel date). The media guidance application may then identify,based on the profile, a home address of the first user (e.g., to learnwhere the user generally is able to access streaming content), and mayparse the content of the electronic communication to identify an addressother than the home address (e.g., the destination of Milan, Italy). Inresponse to identifying the address other than the home address, themedia guidance application may determine the second geographic locationto be the address other than the home address (e.g., may learn to checkinto content restrictions in Milan, Italy).

The media guidance application may similarly process any electroniccommunication 102. For example, information may be parsed from acalendar entry, an MMS message, a voice communication with another userthat was detected by a user input interface (user input interfaces aredescribed below with respect to FIGS. 2-5), or any other communication.Parsing may occur by comparing text to a database of known words thatindicate travel, such as country, state, and city names, airline names,train company names, and any other words that indicate travel. Parsingmay also occur based on credit card, bank, and purchase statements(which may indicate that travel was purchased) and by any other means.

In some embodiments, in response to the detecting (e.g., the detectingof the user traveling to Milan), the media guidance application mayaccess a playlist indicated by a profile of the user that indicates aplurality of streaming media that the user intends to consume. Forexample, the user may subscribe to a media streaming service (e.g.,Spotify for music streaming, Netflix for video streaming), or to anaggregate service where the user can access streaming media from othermedia streaming services. Video streaming services commonly allow usersto populate a watch list, which is a list of media that the user desiresto watch in the near future. Video streaming services and other videoservices also describe wish lists, where a user indicates media hewishes to purchase in the near future. Playlists are also often used notonly in video services, but also in music services, and playlistsindicate media that users wish to consume in the near future in aspecified order.

Using any of these lists, the user may proactively maintain a list ofmedia he wishes to consume in the future. Alternatively, a profile mayindicate media that the user is likely to want to consume in the future.For example, a profile may indicate that a user generally views episodesof a certain series within a few days of when those episodes areavailable, or may indicate that a user has begun viewing some episodesof a series and thus is likely to desire continued access to theremaining episodes of the series.

On the basis of these lists or on the basis of information in the user'sprofile, the media guidance application may determine that a user enjoysa particular show but will not be able to stream it due to the user'stravel. For example, in some embodiments, the media guidance applicationmay compare data corresponding to each streaming media of the pluralityof streaming media to a database to determine whether each streamingmedia of the plurality of streaming media is accessible to the user atthe second geographic location. The data that may be compared to thedatabase may be any type of data corresponding to media, such as title,production company, distribution company, or any other data that may beused as a basis for a content restriction by a media provider such as amedia streaming provider.

In some embodiments, the plurality of streaming media is associated witha particular streaming media provider (e.g., Netflix, which providesstreaming videos, or Spotify, which provides streaming music). Forexample, media streaming providers like Netflix provide differentcontent to subscribers in different countries. The different content isoften due to licensing restrictions placed on content distribution bythe owners of the media. Thus, the database may indicate geographiccontent restrictions for the particular streaming media provider, suchas associations between media and various countries and locations inwhich the media is available or is not available. The media guidanceapplication may, when determining that the subset of the plurality ofmedia is or is not accessible to the user at the second geographiclocation, identify that media of the subset is indicated as available orrestricted at the second geographic location in the reference databases.Database operations are described in further detail below with respectto FIGS. 2-5.

When the media guidance application determines that a subset of media isnot available at the user's destination (e.g., Milan, Italy), the mediaguidance application may alert the user of this fact by way of alert104. Alert 104 may indicate that media is not available in a destinationlocation. If electronic communication 102 indicates that the user istraveling to multiple destinations, alert 104 may indicate contentrestrictions and accessibility in multiple locations. Moreover, themedia guidance application may generate for display selectable option106 concurrently with alert 104 (or separately from alert 104) with anoption to download the media that will be inaccessible at a givendestination. Download operations and functionality are described infurther detail below.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may determine that asubset of the plurality of media is not accessible to the user at thesecond geographic location. For example, if a user enjoys ten videoassets that are available for streaming in New York, but two of them arenot available in Milan, the media guidance application may determinethat the two that are not available in Milan form a subset of media thatis not accessible to the user at the second geographic location. Inresponse to determining that the subset is not accessible to the user atthe second geographic location, the media guidance application maydownload each media of the subset. For example, the media guidanceapplication may locate downloadable versions of the two video assetsfrom an Internet video shop, such as Apple's iTunes shop, and maydownload the downloadable version to a device owned by the user. Thisway, the user may carry the downloaded videos to Milan and consume thedownloaded videos without interruption, as the streaming restriction inMilan will not prevent the user from accessing the downloaded videos.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may, whendownloading each media of the subset, first identify a most suitableuser equipment of a plurality of user equipment owned by the user fortraveling with the user. For example, a user may own many user equipmentin addition to user equipment 100. The user may own a mobile telephone,a tablet computer, a laptop computer, a wearable device such as a smartwatch, television equipment, and the like. Each of these user equipmentmay have various size, weight, memory, and capability attributes. Forexample, a tablet computer may have a small weight and a nice screen forviewing video assets, but may also have limited capacity and not be ableto hold many downloaded video assets in its memory. Thus, the mediaguidance application may then download each media of the subset to themost suitable user equipment.

The most suitable user equipment may be determined based on objectivedata, such as a portable device that is capable of carrying all desiredmedia assets in downloaded form, or one that is capable of displayingmedia in optimal formats (e.g., HD or 4K), or may be determined based onsubjective data, such as user preferences. Selecting a most suitabledevice is described in further detail in U.S. patent application Ser.No. 12/771,502, filed Apr. 30, 2010, published as U.S. Pat. App. Pub.No. 2010/0211636, now abandoned, and U.S. Pat. No. 8,769,578, issuedJul. 1, 2014, each of which are hereby incorporated by reference hereinin their entireties.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may, whendownloading each media of the subset, first determine a user equipmentof a plurality of user equipment owned by the user to download eachmedia of the subset to based on a setting (as opposed to doing so basedon a most suitable device). The setting may be designated by a user. Forexample, the user may have designated a user equipment that he preferstraveling with as a user equipment to which media should be downloaded.The media guidance application may then download each media of thesubset to the user equipment. The setting may also be automaticallydetermined by the media guidance application. For example, the mediaguidance application may apply a setting based on prior activity (e.g.,if the user selects a given device for his past 3 trips, the mediaguidance application may automatically select the given device fordownloading the media the next time the user travels).

In some embodiments, the user equipment may have insufficient capacityto store each media of the subset (e.g., due to hard drive limitations,such as limited hard drive space on tablet computers). The mediaguidance application may, in this instance, automatically select aportion of the subset for storing based on preferences indicated in theprofile. For example, if the user favors action movies, the mediaguidance application may use the limited storage to download actionmovies instead of other media. If preferences are not indicated in theprofile, the media guidance application may determine which media todownload based on any other factor, such as maximizing the number ofmedia assets that are downloaded. Moreover, the media guidanceapplication may seek lower quality versions of the downloadable media inorder to ensure more downloadable media fits on the selected userequipment.

In some embodiments, when the user equipment has insufficient capacityto store each media of the subset, the media guidance application maygenerate for display an alert to the user (e.g., alert 104) indicatingthat the user equipment has insufficient capacity to store each media ofthe subset, and may receive a selection from the user of a portion ofthe subset for storing (e.g., of a particular media that the userfavors). The information may contain information similar to that ofinformation window 108, which includes a list of media available in agiven location. Information window 108 may indicate the subset, and maybe interactive so that the media guidance application receives userselections of which portion should be stored. In response to receivingthe selection, the media guidance application may download the portionof the subset. The portion may be alternatively selected automaticallybased on any factor, such as user preferences, or based on whether amedia is free or costs relatively less than other media costs.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may, in response todetermining that the subset is not accessible to the user at the secondgeographic location, proceed to identify respective locations where arespective downloadable file corresponding to each streaming media ofthe plurality of streaming media is available for downloading. Forexample, the media guidance application may determine that somestreaming media is available in downloadable form from a particularonline store, such as Apple's iTunes store, and other streaming media isavailable in downloadable form for free (e.g., due to a promotion on agiven website). The media guidance application may automaticallydownload the respective downloadable files if the downloadable files areavailable without payment of money.

In some embodiments, if a respective downloadable file requirespurchase, the media guidance application may prompt the user as towhether the user authorizes purchase of the respective downloadable file(e.g., by way of alert 104 or selectable option 106). The media guidanceapplication may then receive a user selection of whether the user wishesto purchase the respective downloadable file. Alternatively, oradditionally, the media guidance application may have default oruser-input settings that automatically dictate whether a given mediashould be downloaded. For example, a user may indicate that if a mediacosts below a threshold amount, or if a subset in its totality costsbelow a threshold amount to obtain, then the media may be automaticallydownloaded, and if not, it should either not be downloaded, or the usershould be contacted for permission. To this end, the media guidanceapplication may seek out the lowest-cost method of obtaining thedownloadable media files. Seeking out a lowest-cost method of obtainingmedia is described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/535,053, filedJun. 27, 2012, currently pending, which was published as U.S. Pat. App.Pub. No. 2014/0007146, the contents of which are hereby incorporated byreference herein in their entirety.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may determine thatthe user generally views media in the company of friends or family. Themedia guidance application may consider watch lists or future viewingpreferences of the friends or family when generating for display alert104, and may incorporate the viewing preferences of the friends orfamily in alert 104.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may enable the userto carry restricted content with him when the user travels, but mayprevent the user from consuming the content in geographical locationswhere the content is restricted. The media guidance application maydetect that the user has entered a geographical location where contentis restricted (e.g., Milan, Italy), and may responsively store the mediain a part of the device that is not accessible while in Milan, Italy, ormay simply disable access to that media while the user is in Milan,Italy.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may refrain fromdownloading the restricted content in the first place, and may downloadreplacement content that is similar to the restricted content, or maydownload other content of the user's playlist. For example, in someembodiments, media content may be unavailable in a given country due tolicensing restrictions. In some scenarios, though, some media contentmay actually be illegal in some geographic locations, rather than simplyunavailable. In these scenarios, the media guidance application mayautomatically download the unavailable content, but refrain fromdownloading the restricted (e.g., illegal) content.

The amount of content available to users in any given content deliverysystem can be substantial. Consequently, many users desire a form ofmedia guidance through an interface that allows users to efficientlynavigate content selections and easily identify content that they maydesire. An application that provides such guidance is referred to hereinas an interactive media guidance application or, sometimes, a mediaguidance application or a guidance application.

Interactive media guidance applications may take various forms dependingon the content for which they provide guidance. One typical type ofmedia guidance application is an interactive television program guide.Interactive television program guides (sometimes referred to aselectronic program guides) are well-known guidance applications that,among other things, allow users to navigate among and locate many typesof content or media assets. Interactive media guidance applications maygenerate graphical user interface screens that enable a user to navigateamong, locate and select content. As referred to herein, the terms“media asset” and “content” should be understood to mean anelectronically consumable user asset, such as television programming, aswell as pay-per-view programs, on-demand programs (as in video-on-demand(VOD) systems), Internet content (e.g., streaming content, downloadablecontent, Webcasts, etc.), video clips, audio, content information,pictures, rotating images, documents, playlists, websites, articles,books, electronic books, blogs, chat sessions, social media,applications, games, and/or any other media or multimedia and/orcombination of the same. Guidance applications also allow users tonavigate among and locate content. As referred to herein, the term“multimedia” should be understood to mean content that utilizes at leasttwo different content forms described above, for example, text, audio,images, video, or interactivity content forms. Content may be recorded,played, displayed or accessed by user equipment devices, but can also bepart of a live performance.

The media guidance application and/or any instructions for performingany of the embodiments discussed herein may be encoded on computerreadable media. Computer readable media includes any media capable ofstoring data. The computer readable media may be transitory, including,but not limited to, propagating electrical or electromagnetic signals,or may be non-transitory including, but not limited to, volatile andnon-volatile computer memory or storage devices such as a hard disk,floppy disk, USB drive, DVD, CD, media cards, register memory, processorcaches, Random Access Memory (“RAM”), etc.

With the advent of the Internet, mobile computing, and high-speedwireless networks, users are accessing media on user equipment deviceson which they traditionally did not. As referred to herein, the phrase“user equipment device,” “user equipment,” “user device,” “electronicdevice,” “electronic equipment,” “media equipment device,” or “mediadevice” should be understood to mean any device for accessing thecontent described above, such as a television, a Smart TV, a set-topbox, an integrated receiver decoder (IRD) for handling satellitetelevision, a digital storage device, a digital media receiver (DMR), adigital media adapter (DMA), a streaming media device, a DVD player, aDVD recorder, a connected DVD, a local media server, a BLU-RAY player, aBLU-RAY recorder, a personal computer (PC), a laptop computer, a tabletcomputer, a WebTV box, a personal computer television (PC/TV), a PCmedia server, a PC media center, a hand-held computer, a stationarytelephone, a personal digital assistant (PDA), a mobile telephone, aportable video player, a portable music player, a portable gamingmachine, a smart phone, or any other television equipment, computingequipment, or wireless device, and/or combination of the same. In someembodiments, the user equipment device may have a front facing screenand a rear facing screen, multiple front screens, or multiple angledscreens. In some embodiments, the user equipment device may have a frontfacing camera and/or a rear facing camera. On these user equipmentdevices, users may be able to navigate among and locate the same contentavailable through a television. Consequently, media guidance may beavailable on these devices, as well. The guidance provided may be forcontent available only through a television, for content available onlythrough one or more of other types of user equipment devices, or forcontent available both through a television and one or more of the othertypes of user equipment devices. The media guidance applications may beprovided as on-line applications (i.e., provided on a web-site), or asstand-alone applications or clients on user equipment devices. Variousdevices and platforms that may implement media guidance applications aredescribed in more detail below.

One of the functions of the media guidance application is to providemedia guidance data to users. As referred to herein, the phrase “mediaguidance data” or “guidance data” should be understood to mean any datarelated to content or data used in operating the guidance application.For example, the guidance data may include program information, guidanceapplication settings, user preferences, user profile information, medialistings, media-related information (e.g., broadcast times, broadcastchannels, titles, descriptions, ratings information (e.g., parentalcontrol ratings, critic's ratings, etc.), genre or category information,actor information, logo data for broadcasters' or providers' logos,etc.), media format (e.g., standard definition, high definition, 3D,etc.), on-demand information, blogs, websites, and any other type ofguidance data that is helpful for a user to navigate among and locatedesired content selections.

FIGS. 2-3 show illustrative display screens that may be used to providemedia guidance data. The display screens shown in FIGS. 2-3 may beimplemented on any suitable user equipment device or platform. While thedisplays of FIGS. 2-3 are illustrated as full screen displays, they mayalso be fully or partially overlaid over content being displayed. A usermay indicate a desire to access content information by selecting aselectable option provided in a display screen (e.g., a menu option, alistings option, an icon, a hyperlink, etc.) or pressing a dedicatedbutton (e.g., a GUIDE button) on a remote control or other user inputinterface or device. In response to the user's indication, the mediaguidance application may provide a display screen with media guidancedata organized in one of several ways, such as by time and channel in agrid, by time, by channel, by source, by content type, by category(e.g., movies, sports, news, children, or other categories ofprogramming), or other predefined, user-defined, or other organizationcriteria.

FIG. 2 shows illustrative grid of a program listings display 200arranged by time and channel that also enables access to different typesof content in a single display. Display 200 may include grid 202 with:(1) a column of channel/content type identifiers 204, where eachchannel/content type identifier (which is a cell in the column)identifies a different channel or content type available; and (2) a rowof time identifiers 206, where each time identifier (which is a cell inthe row) identifies a time block of programming. Grid 202 also includescells of program listings, such as program listing 208, where eachlisting provides the title of the program provided on the listing'sassociated channel and time. With a user input device, a user can selectprogram listings by moving highlight region 210. Information relating tothe program listing selected by highlight region 210 may be provided inprogram information region 212. Region 212 may include, for example, theprogram title, the program description, the time the program is provided(if applicable), the channel the program is on (if applicable), theprogram's rating, and other desired information.

In addition to providing access to linear programming (e.g., contentthat is scheduled to be transmitted to a plurality of user equipmentdevices at a predetermined time and is provided according to aschedule), the media guidance application also provides access tonon-linear programming (e.g., content accessible to a user equipmentdevice at any time and is not provided according to a schedule).Non-linear programming may include content from different contentsources including on-demand content (e.g., VOD), Internet content (e.g.,streaming media, downloadable media, etc.), locally stored content(e.g., content stored on any user equipment device described above orother storage device), or other time-independent content. On-demandcontent may include movies or any other content provided by a particularcontent provider (e.g., HBO On Demand providing “The Sopranos” and “CurbYour Enthusiasm”). HBO ON DEMAND is a service mark owned by Time WarnerCompany L.P. et al. and THE SOPRANOS and CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM aretrademarks owned by the Home Box Office, Inc. Internet content mayinclude web events, such as a chat session or Webcast, or contentavailable on-demand as streaming content or downloadable content throughan Internet web site or other Internet access (e.g. FTP).

Grid 202 may provide media guidance data for non-linear programmingincluding on-demand listing 214, recorded content listing 216, andInternet content listing 218. A display combining media guidance datafor content from different types of content sources is sometimesreferred to as a “mixed-media” display. Various permutations of thetypes of media guidance data that may be displayed that are differentthan display 200 may be based on user selection or guidance applicationdefinition (e.g., a display of only recorded and broadcast listings,only on-demand and broadcast listings, etc.). As illustrated, listings214, 216, and 218 are shown as spanning the entire time block displayedin grid 202 to indicate that selection of these listings may provideaccess to a display dedicated to on-demand listings, recorded listings,or Internet listings, respectively. In some embodiments, listings forthese content types may be included directly in grid 202. Additionalmedia guidance data may be displayed in response to the user selectingone of the navigational icons 220. (Pressing an arrow key on a userinput device may affect the display in a similar manner as selectingnavigational icons 220.)

Display 200 may also include video region 222, and options region 226.Video region 222 may allow the user to view and/or preview programs thatare currently available, will be available, or were available to theuser. The content of video region 222 may correspond to, or beindependent from, one of the listings displayed in grid 202. Griddisplays including a video region are sometimes referred to aspicture-in-guide (PIG) displays. PIG displays and their functionalitiesare described in greater detail in Satterfield et al. U.S. Pat. No.6,564,378, issued May 13, 2003 and Yuen et al. U.S. Pat. No. 6,239,794,issued May 29, 2001, which are hereby incorporated by reference hereinin their entireties. PIG displays may be included in other mediaguidance application display screens of the embodiments describedherein.

Options region 226 may allow the user to access different types ofcontent, media guidance application displays, and/or media guidanceapplication features. Options region 226 may be part of display 200 (andother display screens described herein), or may be invoked by a user byselecting an on-screen option or pressing a dedicated or assignablebutton on a user input device. The selectable options within optionsregion 226 may concern features related to program listings in grid 202or may include options available from a main menu display. Featuresrelated to program listings may include searching for other air times orways of receiving a program, recording a program, enabling seriesrecording of a program, setting program and/or channel as a favorite,purchasing a program, or other features. Options available from a mainmenu display may include search options, VOD options, parental controloptions, Internet options, cloud-based options, device synchronizationoptions, second screen device options, options to access various typesof media guidance data displays, options to subscribe to a premiumservice, options to edit a user's profile, options to access a browseoverlay, or other options.

The media guidance application may be personalized based on a user'spreferences. A personalized media guidance application allows a user tocustomize displays and features to create a personalized “experience”with the media guidance application. This personalized experience may becreated by allowing a user to input these customizations and/or by themedia guidance application monitoring user activity to determine varioususer preferences. Users may access their personalized guidanceapplication by logging in or otherwise identifying themselves to theguidance application. Customization of the media guidance applicationmay be made in accordance with a user profile. The customizations mayinclude varying presentation schemes (e.g., color scheme of displays,font size of text, etc.), aspects of content listings displayed (e.g.,only HDTV or only 3D programming, user-specified broadcast channelsbased on favorite channel selections, re-ordering the display ofchannels, recommended content, etc.), desired recording features (e.g.,recording or series recordings for particular users, recording quality,etc.), parental control settings, customized presentation of Internetcontent (e.g., presentation of social media content, e-mail,electronically delivered articles, etc.) and other desiredcustomizations.

The media guidance application may allow a user to provide user profileinformation or may automatically compile user profile information. Themedia guidance application may, for example, monitor the content theuser accesses and/or other interactions the user may have with theguidance application. Additionally, the media guidance application mayobtain all or part of other user profiles that are related to aparticular user (e.g., from other web sites on the Internet the useraccesses, such as www.allrovi.com, from other media guidanceapplications the user accesses, from other interactive applications theuser accesses, from another user equipment device of the user, etc.),and/or obtain information about the user from other sources that themedia guidance application may access. As a result, a user can beprovided with a unified guidance application experience across theuser's different user equipment devices. This type of user experience isdescribed in greater detail below in connection with FIG. 5. Additionalpersonalized media guidance application features are described ingreater detail in Ellis et al., U.S. Patent Application Publication No.2005/0251827, filed Jul. 11, 2005, Boyer et al., U.S. Pat. No.7,165,098, issued Jan. 16, 2007, and Ellis et al., U.S. PatentApplication Publication No. 2002/0174430, filed Feb. 21, 2002, which arehereby incorporated by reference herein in their entireties.

Another display arrangement for providing media guidance is shown inFIG. 3. Video mosaic display 300 includes selectable options 302 forcontent information organized based on content type, genre, and/or otherorganization criteria. In display 300, television listings option 304 isselected, thus providing listings 306, 308, 310, and 312 as broadcastprogram listings. In display 300 the listings may provide graphicalimages including cover art, still images from the content, video clippreviews, live video from the content, or other types of content thatindicate to a user the content being described by the media guidancedata in the listing. Each of the graphical listings may also beaccompanied by text to provide further information about the contentassociated with the listing. For example, listing 308 may include morethan one portion, including media portion 314 and text portion 316.Media portion 314 and/or text portion 316 may be selectable to viewcontent in full-screen or to view information related to the contentdisplayed in media portion 314 (e.g., to view listings for the channelthat the video is displayed on).

The listings in display 300 are of different sizes (i.e., listing 306 islarger than listings 308, 310, and 312), but if desired, all thelistings may be the same size. Listings may be of different sizes orgraphically accentuated to indicate degrees of interest to the user orto emphasize certain content, as desired by the content provider orbased on user preferences. Various systems and methods for graphicallyaccentuating content listings are discussed in, for example, Yates, U.S.Patent Application Publication No. 2010/0153885, filed Nov. 12, 2009,which is hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.

Users may access content and the media guidance application (and itsdisplay screens described above and below) from one or more of theiruser equipment devices. FIG. 4 shows a generalized embodiment ofillustrative user equipment device 400. More specific implementations ofuser equipment devices are discussed below in connection with FIG. 5.User equipment device 400 may receive content and data via input/output(hereinafter “I/O”) path 402. I/O path 402 may provide content (e.g.,broadcast programming, on-demand programming, Internet content, contentavailable over a local area network (LAN) or wide area network (WAN),and/or other content) and data to control circuitry 404, which includesprocessing circuitry 406 and storage 408. Control circuitry 404 may beused to send and receive commands, requests, and other suitable datausing I/O path 402. I/O path 402 may connect control circuitry 404 (andspecifically processing circuitry 406) to one or more communicationspaths (described below). I/O functions may be provided by one or more ofthese communications paths, but are shown as a single path in FIG. 4 toavoid overcomplicating the drawing.

Control circuitry 404 may be based on any suitable processing circuitrysuch as processing circuitry 406. As referred to herein, processingcircuitry should be understood to mean circuitry based on one or moremicroprocessors, microcontrollers, digital signal processors,programmable logic devices, field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs),application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), etc., and may includea multi-core processor (e.g., dual-core, quad-core, hexa-core, or anysuitable number of cores) or supercomputer. In some embodiments,processing circuitry may be distributed across multiple separateprocessors or processing units, for example, multiple of the same typeof processing units (e.g., two Intel Core i7 processors) or multipledifferent processors (e.g., an Intel Core i5 processor and an Intel Corei7 processor). In some embodiments, control circuitry 404 executesinstructions for a media guidance application stored in memory (i.e.,storage 408). Specifically, control circuitry 404 may be instructed bythe media guidance application to perform the functions discussed aboveand below. For example, the media guidance application may provideinstructions to control circuitry 404 to generate the media guidancedisplays. In some implementations, any action performed by controlcircuitry 404 may be based on instructions received from the mediaguidance application.

In client-server based embodiments, control circuitry 404 may includecommunications circuitry suitable for communicating with a guidanceapplication server or other networks or servers. The instructions forcarrying out the above mentioned functionality may be stored on theguidance application server. Communications circuitry may include acable modem, an integrated services digital network (ISDN) modem, adigital subscriber line (DSL) modem, a telephone modem, Ethernet card,or a wireless modem for communications with other equipment, or anyother suitable communications circuitry. Such communications may involvethe Internet or any other suitable communications networks or paths(which is described in more detail in connection with FIG. 5). Inaddition, communications circuitry may include circuitry that enablespeer-to-peer communication of user equipment devices, or communicationof user equipment devices in locations remote from each other (describedin more detail below).

Memory may be an electronic storage device provided as storage 408 thatis part of control circuitry 404. As referred to herein, the phrase“electronic storage device” or “storage device” should be understood tomean any device for storing electronic data, computer software, orfirmware, such as random-access memory, read-only memory, hard drives,optical drives, digital video disc (DVD) recorders, compact disc (CD)recorders, BLU-RAY disc (BD) recorders, BLU-RAY 3D disc recorders,digital video recorders (DVR, sometimes called a personal videorecorder, or PVR), solid state devices, quantum storage devices, gamingconsoles, gaming media, or any other suitable fixed or removable storagedevices, and/or any combination of the same. Storage 408 may be used tostore various types of content described herein as well as mediaguidance data described above. Nonvolatile memory may also be used(e.g., to launch a boot-up routine and other instructions). Cloud-basedstorage, described in relation to FIG. 5, may be used to supplementstorage 408 or instead of storage 408.

Control circuitry 404 may include video generating circuitry and tuningcircuitry, such as one or more analog tuners, one or more MPEG-2decoders or other digital decoding circuitry, high-definition tuners, orany other suitable tuning or video circuits or combinations of suchcircuits. Encoding circuitry (e.g., for converting over-the-air, analog,or digital signals to MPEG signals for storage) may also be provided.Control circuitry 404 may also include scaler circuitry for upconvertingand downconverting content into the preferred output format of the userequipment 400. Circuitry 404 may also include digital-to-analogconverter circuitry and analog-to-digital converter circuitry forconverting between digital and analog signals. The tuning and encodingcircuitry may be used by the user equipment device to receive and todisplay, to play, or to record content. The tuning and encodingcircuitry may also be used to receive guidance data. The circuitrydescribed herein, including for example, the tuning, video generating,encoding, decoding, encrypting, decrypting, scaler, and analog/digitalcircuitry, may be implemented using software running on one or moregeneral purpose or specialized processors. Multiple tuners may beprovided to handle simultaneous tuning functions (e.g., watch and recordfunctions, picture-in-picture (PIP) functions, multiple-tuner recording,etc.). If storage 408 is provided as a separate device from userequipment 400, the tuning and encoding circuitry (including multipletuners) may be associated with storage 408.

A user may send instructions to control circuitry 404 using user inputinterface 410. User input interface 410 may be any suitable userinterface, such as a remote control, mouse, trackball, keypad, keyboard,touch screen, touchpad, stylus input, joystick, voice recognitioninterface, or other user input interfaces. Display 412 may be providedas a stand-alone device or integrated with other elements of userequipment device 400. For example, display 412 may be a touchscreen ortouch-sensitive display. In such circumstances, user input interface 410may be integrated with or combined with display 412. Display 412 may beone or more of a monitor, a television, a liquid crystal display (LCD)for a mobile device, amorphous silicon display, low temperature polysilicon display, electronic ink display, electrophoretic display, activematrix display, electro-wetting display, electrofluidic display, cathoderay tube display, light-emitting diode display, electroluminescentdisplay, plasma display panel, high-performance addressing display,thin-film transistor display, organic light-emitting diode display,surface-conduction electron-emitter display (SED), laser television,carbon nanotubes, quantum dot display, interferometric modulatordisplay, or any other suitable equipment for displaying visual images.In some embodiments, display 412 may be HDTV-capable. In someembodiments, display 412 may be a 3D display, and the interactive mediaguidance application and any suitable content may be displayed in 3D. Avideo card or graphics card may generate the output to the display 412.The video card may offer various functions such as accelerated renderingof 3D scenes and 2D graphics, MPEG-2/MPEG-4 decoding, TV output, or theability to connect multiple monitors. The video card may be anyprocessing circuitry described above in relation to control circuitry404. The video card may be integrated with the control circuitry 404.Speakers 414 may be provided as integrated with other elements of userequipment device 400 or may be stand-alone units. The audio component ofvideos and other content displayed on display 412 may be played throughspeakers 414. In some embodiments, the audio may be distributed to areceiver (not shown), which processes and outputs the audio via speakers414.

The guidance application may be implemented using any suitablearchitecture. For example, it may be a stand-alone applicationwholly-implemented on user equipment device 400. In such an approach,instructions of the application are stored locally (e.g., in storage408), and data for use by the application is downloaded on a periodicbasis (e.g., from an out-of-band feed, from an Internet resource, orusing another suitable approach). Control circuitry 404 may retrieveinstructions of the application from storage 408 and process theinstructions to generate any of the displays discussed herein. Based onthe processed instructions, control circuitry 404 may determine whataction to perform when input is received from input interface 410. Forexample, movement of a cursor on a display up/down may be indicated bythe processed instructions when input interface 410 indicates that anup/down button was selected.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application is a client-serverbased application. Data for use by a thick or thin client implemented onuser equipment device 400 is retrieved on-demand by issuing requests toa server remote to the user equipment device 400. In one example of aclient-server based guidance application, control circuitry 404 runs aweb browser that interprets web pages provided by a remote server. Forexample, the remote server may store the instructions for theapplication in a storage device. The remote server may process thestored instructions using circuitry (e.g., control circuitry 404) andgenerate the displays discussed above and below. The client device mayreceive the displays generated by the remote server and may display thecontent of the displays locally on equipment device 400. This way, theprocessing of the instructions is performed remotely by the server whilethe resulting displays are provided locally on equipment device 400.Equipment device 400 may receive inputs from the user via inputinterface 410 and transmit those inputs to the remote server forprocessing and generating the corresponding displays. For example,equipment device 400 may transmit a communication to the remote serverindicating that an up/down button was selected via input interface 410.The remote server may process instructions in accordance with that inputand generate a display of the application corresponding to the input(e.g., a display that moves a cursor up/down). The generated display isthen transmitted to equipment device 400 for presentation to the user.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application is downloaded andinterpreted or otherwise run by an interpreter or virtual machine (runby control circuitry 404). In some embodiments, the guidance applicationmay be encoded in the ETV Binary Interchange Format (EBIF), received bycontrol circuitry 404 as part of a suitable feed, and interpreted by auser agent running on control circuitry 404. For example, the guidanceapplication may be an EBIF application. In some embodiments, theguidance application may be defined by a series of JAVA-based files thatare received and run by a local virtual machine or other suitablemiddleware executed by control circuitry 404. In some of suchembodiments (e.g., those employing MPEG-2 or other digital mediaencoding schemes), the guidance application may be, for example, encodedand transmitted in an MPEG-2 object carousel with the MPEG audio andvideo packets of a program.

User equipment device 400 of FIG. 4 can be implemented in system 500 ofFIG. 5 as user television equipment 502, user computer equipment 504,wireless user communications device 506, or any other type of userequipment suitable for accessing content, such as a non-portable gamingmachine. For simplicity, these devices may be referred to hereincollectively as user equipment or user equipment devices, and may besubstantially similar to user equipment devices described above. Userequipment devices, on which a media guidance application may beimplemented, may function as a standalone device or may be part of anetwork of devices. Various network configurations of devices may beimplemented and are discussed in more detail below.

A user equipment device utilizing at least some of the system featuresdescribed above in connection with FIG. 4 may not be classified solelyas user television equipment 502, user computer equipment 504, or awireless user communications device 506. For example, user televisionequipment 502 may, like some user computer equipment 504, beInternet-enabled allowing for access to Internet content, while usercomputer equipment 504 may, like some television equipment 502, includea tuner allowing for access to television programming. The mediaguidance application may have the same layout on various different typesof user equipment or may be tailored to the display capabilities of theuser equipment. For example, on user computer equipment 504, theguidance application may be provided as a web site accessed by a webbrowser. In another example, the guidance application may be scaled downfor wireless user communications devices 506.

In system 500, there is typically more than one of each type of userequipment device but only one of each is shown in FIG. 5 to avoidovercomplicating the drawing. In addition, each user may utilize morethan one type of user equipment device and also more than one of eachtype of user equipment device.

In some embodiments, a user equipment device (e.g., user televisionequipment 502, user computer equipment 504, wireless user communicationsdevice 506) may be referred to as a “second screen device.” For example,a second screen device may supplement content presented on a first userequipment device. The content presented on the second screen device maybe any suitable content that supplements the content presented on thefirst device. In some embodiments, the second screen device provides aninterface for adjusting settings and display preferences of the firstdevice. In some embodiments, the second screen device is configured forinteracting with other second screen devices or for interacting with asocial network. The second screen device can be located in the same roomas the first device, a different room from the first device but in thesame house or building, or in a different building from the firstdevice.

The user may also set various settings to maintain consistent mediaguidance application settings across in-home devices and remote devices.Settings include those described herein, as well as channel and programfavorites, programming preferences that the guidance applicationutilizes to make programming recommendations, display preferences, andother desirable guidance settings. For example, if a user sets a channelas a favorite on, for example, the web site www.allrovi.com on theirpersonal computer at their office, the same channel would appear as afavorite on the user's in-home devices (e.g., user television equipmentand user computer equipment) as well as the user's mobile devices, ifdesired. Therefore, changes made on one user equipment device can changethe guidance experience on another user equipment device, regardless ofwhether they are the same or a different type of user equipment device.In addition, the changes made may be based on settings input by a user,as well as user activity monitored by the guidance application.

The user equipment devices may be coupled to communications network 514.Namely, user television equipment 502, user computer equipment 504, andwireless user communications device 506 are coupled to communicationsnetwork 514 via communications paths 508, 510, and 512, respectively.Communications network 514 may be one or more networks including theInternet, a mobile phone network, mobile voice or data network (e.g., a4G or LTE network), cable network, public switched telephone network, orother types of communications network or combinations of communicationsnetworks. Paths 508, 510, and 512 may separately or together include oneor more communications paths, such as, a satellite path, a fiber-opticpath, a cable path, a path that supports Internet communications (e.g.,IPTV), free-space connections (e.g., for broadcast or other wirelesssignals), or any other suitable wired or wireless communications path orcombination of such paths. Path 512 is drawn with dotted lines toindicate that in the exemplary embodiment shown in FIG. 5 it is awireless path and paths 508 and 510 are drawn as solid lines to indicatethey are wired paths (although these paths may be wireless paths, ifdesired). Communications with the user equipment devices may be providedby one or more of these communications paths, but are shown as a singlepath in FIG. 5 to avoid overcomplicating the drawing.

Although communications paths are not drawn between user equipmentdevices, these devices may communicate directly with each other viacommunication paths, such as those described above in connection withpaths 508, 510, and 512, as well as other short-range point-to-pointcommunication paths, such as USB cables, IEEE 1394 cables, wirelesspaths (e.g., Bluetooth, infrared, IEEE 802-11x, etc.), or othershort-range communication via wired or wireless paths. BLUETOOTH is acertification mark owned by Bluetooth SIG, INC. The user equipmentdevices may also communicate with each other directly through anindirect path via communications network 514.

System 500 includes content source 516 and media guidance data source518 coupled to communications network 514 via communication paths 520and 522, respectively. Paths 520 and 522 may include any of thecommunication paths described above in connection with paths 508, 510,and 512. Communications with the content source 516 and media guidancedata source 518 may be exchanged over one or more communications paths,but are shown as a single path in FIG. 5 to avoid overcomplicating thedrawing. In addition, there may be more than one of each of contentsource 516 and media guidance data source 518, but only one of each isshown in FIG. 5 to avoid overcomplicating the drawing. (The differenttypes of each of these sources are discussed below.) If desired, contentsource 516 and media guidance data source 518 may be integrated as onesource device. Although communications between sources 516 and 518 withuser equipment devices 502, 504, and 506 are shown as throughcommunications network 514, in some embodiments, sources 516 and 518 maycommunicate directly with user equipment devices 502, 504, and 506 viacommunication paths (not shown) such as those described above inconnection with paths 508, 510, and 512.

Content source 516 may include one or more types of content distributionequipment including a television distribution facility, cable systemheadend, satellite distribution facility, programming sources (e.g.,television broadcasters, such as NBC, ABC, HBO, etc.), intermediatedistribution facilities and/or servers, Internet providers, on-demandmedia servers, and other content providers. NBC is a trademark owned bythe National Broadcasting Company, Inc., ABC is a trademark owned by theAmerican Broadcasting Company, Inc., and HBO is a trademark owned by theHome Box Office, Inc. Content source 516 may be the originator ofcontent (e.g., a television broadcaster, a Webcast provider, etc.) ormay not be the originator of content (e.g., an on-demand contentprovider, an Internet provider of content of broadcast programs fordownloading, etc.). Content source 516 may include cable sources,satellite providers, on-demand providers, Internet providers,over-the-top content providers, or other providers of content. Contentsource 516 may also include a remote media server used to storedifferent types of content (including video content selected by a user),in a location remote from any of the user equipment devices. Systems andmethods for remote storage of content, and providing remotely storedcontent to user equipment are discussed in greater detail in connectionwith Ellis et al., U.S. Pat. No. 7,761,892, issued Jul. 20, 2010, whichis hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.

Media guidance data source 518 may provide media guidance data, such asthe media guidance data described above. Media guidance data may beprovided to the user equipment devices using any suitable approach. Insome embodiments, the guidance application may be a stand-aloneinteractive television program guide that receives program guide datavia a data feed (e.g., a continuous feed or trickle feed). Programschedule data and other guidance data may be provided to the userequipment on a television channel sideband, using an in-band digitalsignal, using an out-of-band digital signal, or by any other suitabledata transmission technique. Program schedule data and other mediaguidance data may be provided to user equipment on multiple analog ordigital television channels.

In some embodiments, guidance data from media guidance data source 518may be provided to users' equipment using a client-server approach. Forexample, a user equipment device may pull media guidance data from aserver, or a server may push media guidance data to a user equipmentdevice. In some embodiments, a guidance application client residing onthe user's equipment may initiate sessions with source 518 to obtainguidance data when needed, e.g., when the guidance data is out of dateor when the user equipment device receives a request from the user toreceive data. Media guidance may be provided to the user equipment withany suitable frequency (e.g., continuously, daily, a user-specifiedperiod of time, a system-specified period of time, in response to arequest from user equipment, etc.). Media guidance data source 518 mayprovide user equipment devices 502, 504, and 506 the media guidanceapplication itself or software updates for the media guidanceapplication.

In some embodiments, the media guidance data may include viewer data.For example, the viewer data may include current and/or historical useractivity information (e.g., what content the user typically watches,what times of day the user watches content, whether the user interactswith a social network, at what times the user interacts with a socialnetwork to post information, what types of content the user typicallywatches (e.g., pay TV or free TV), mood, brain activity information,etc.). The media guidance data may also include subscription data. Forexample, the subscription data may identify to which sources or servicesa given user subscribes and/or to which sources or services the givenuser has previously subscribed but later terminated access (e.g.,whether the user subscribes to premium channels, whether the user hasadded a premium level of services, whether the user has increasedInternet speed). In some embodiments, the viewer data and/or thesubscription data may identify patterns of a given user for a period ofmore than one year. The media guidance data may include a model (e.g., asurvivor model) used for generating a score that indicates a likelihooda given user will terminate access to a service/source. For example, themedia guidance application may process the viewer data with thesubscription data using the model to generate a value or score thatindicates a likelihood of whether the given user will terminate accessto a particular service or source. In particular, a higher score mayindicate a higher level of confidence that the user will terminateaccess to a particular service or source. Based on the score, the mediaguidance application may generate promotions that entice the user tokeep the particular service or source indicated by the score as one towhich the user will likely terminate access.

Media guidance applications may be, for example, stand-aloneapplications implemented on user equipment devices. For example, themedia guidance application may be implemented as software or a set ofexecutable instructions which may be stored in storage 408, and executedby control circuitry 404 of a user equipment device 400. In someembodiments, media guidance applications may be client-serverapplications where only a client application resides on the userequipment device, and server application resides on a remote server. Forexample, media guidance applications may be implemented partially as aclient application on control circuitry 404 of user equipment device 400and partially on a remote server as a server application (e.g., mediaguidance data source 518) running on control circuitry of the remoteserver. When executed by control circuitry of the remote server (such asmedia guidance data source 518), the media guidance application mayinstruct the control circuitry to generate the guidance applicationdisplays and transmit the generated displays to the user equipmentdevices. The server application may instruct the control circuitry ofthe media guidance data source 518 to transmit data for storage on theuser equipment. The client application may instruct control circuitry ofthe receiving user equipment to generate the guidance applicationdisplays.

Content and/or media guidance data delivered to user equipment devices502, 504, and 506 may be over-the-top (OTT) content. OTT contentdelivery allows Internet-enabled user devices, including any userequipment device described above, to receive content that is transferredover the Internet, including any content described above, in addition tocontent received over cable or satellite connections. OTT content isdelivered via an Internet connection provided by an Internet serviceprovider (ISP), but a third party distributes the content. The ISP maynot be responsible for the viewing abilities, copyrights, orredistribution of the content, and may only transfer IP packets providedby the OTT content provider. Examples of OTT content providers includeYOUTUBE, NETFLIX, and HULU, which provide audio and video via IPpackets. Youtube is a trademark owned by Google Inc., Netflix is atrademark owned by Netflix Inc., and Hulu is a trademark owned by Hulu,LLC. OTT content providers may additionally or alternatively providemedia guidance data described above. In addition to content and/or mediaguidance data, providers of OTT content can distribute media guidanceapplications (e.g., web-based applications or cloud-based applications),or the content can be displayed by media guidance applications stored onthe user equipment device.

Media guidance system 500 is intended to illustrate a number ofapproaches, or network configurations, by which user equipment devicesand sources of content and guidance data may communicate with each otherfor the purpose of accessing content and providing media guidance. Theembodiments described herein may be applied in any one or a subset ofthese approaches, or in a system employing other approaches fordelivering content and providing media guidance. The following fourapproaches provide specific illustrations of the generalized example ofFIG. 5.

In one approach, user equipment devices may communicate with each otherwithin a home network. User equipment devices can communicate with eachother directly via short-range point-to-point communication schemesdescribed above, via indirect paths through a hub or other similardevice provided on a home network, or via communications network 514.Each of the multiple individuals in a single home may operate differentuser equipment devices on the home network. As a result, it may bedesirable for various media guidance information or settings to becommunicated between the different user equipment devices. For example,it may be desirable for users to maintain consistent media guidanceapplication settings on different user equipment devices within a homenetwork, as described in greater detail in Ellis et al., U.S. PatentPublication No. 2005/0251827, filed Jul. 11, 2005. Different types ofuser equipment devices in a home network may also communicate with eachother to transmit content. For example, a user may transmit content fromuser computer equipment to a portable video player or portable musicplayer.

In a second approach, users may have multiple types of user equipment bywhich they access content and obtain media guidance. For example, someusers may have home networks that are accessed by in-home and mobiledevices. Users may control in-home devices via a media guidanceapplication implemented on a remote device. For example, users mayaccess an online media guidance application on a website via a personalcomputer at their office, or a mobile device such as a PDA orweb-enabled mobile telephone. The user may set various settings (e.g.,recordings, reminders, or other settings) on the online guidanceapplication to control the user's in-home equipment. The online guidemay control the user's equipment directly, or by communicating with amedia guidance application on the user's in-home equipment. Varioussystems and methods for user equipment devices communicating, where theuser equipment devices are in locations remote from each other, isdiscussed in, for example, Ellis et al., U.S. Pat. No. 8,046,801, issuedOct. 25, 2011, which is hereby incorporated by reference herein in itsentirety.

In a third approach, users of user equipment devices inside and outsidea home can use their media guidance application to communicate directlywith content source 516 to access content. Specifically, within a home,users of user television equipment 502 and user computer equipment 504may access the media guidance application to navigate among and locatedesirable content. Users may also access the media guidance applicationoutside of the home using wireless user communications devices 506 tonavigate among and locate desirable content.

In a fourth approach, user equipment devices may operate in a cloudcomputing environment to access cloud services. In a cloud computingenvironment, various types of computing services for content sharing,storage or distribution (e.g., video sharing sites or social networkingsites) are provided by a collection of network-accessible computing andstorage resources, referred to as “the cloud.” For example, the cloudcan include a collection of server computing devices, which may belocated centrally or at distributed locations, that provide cloud-basedservices to various types of users and devices connected via a networksuch as the Internet via communications network 514. These cloudresources may include one or more content sources 516 and one or moremedia guidance data sources 518. In addition or in the alternative, theremote computing sites may include other user equipment devices, such asuser television equipment 502, user computer equipment 504, and wirelessuser communications device 506. For example, the other user equipmentdevices may provide access to a stored copy of a video or a streamedvideo. In such embodiments, user equipment devices may operate in apeer-to-peer manner without communicating with a central server.

The cloud provides access to services, such as content storage, contentsharing, or social networking services, among other examples, as well asaccess to any content described above, for user equipment devices.Services can be provided in the cloud through cloud computing serviceproviders, or through other providers of online services. For example,the cloud-based services can include a content storage service, acontent sharing site, a social networking site, or other services viawhich user-sourced content is distributed for viewing by others onconnected devices. These cloud-based services may allow a user equipmentdevice to store content to the cloud and to receive content from thecloud rather than storing content locally and accessing locally-storedcontent.

A user may use various content capture devices, such as camcorders,digital cameras with video mode, audio recorders, mobile phones, andhandheld computing devices, to record content. The user can uploadcontent to a content storage service on the cloud either directly, forexample, from user computer equipment 504 or wireless usercommunications device 506 having content capture feature. Alternatively,the user can first transfer the content to a user equipment device, suchas user computer equipment 504. The user equipment device storing thecontent uploads the content to the cloud using a data transmissionservice on communications network 514. In some embodiments, the userequipment device itself is a cloud resource, and other user equipmentdevices can access the content directly from the user equipment deviceon which the user stored the content.

Cloud resources may be accessed by a user equipment device using, forexample, a web browser, a media guidance application, a desktopapplication, a mobile application, and/or any combination of accessapplications of the same. The user equipment device may be a cloudclient that relies on cloud computing for application delivery, or theuser equipment device may have some functionality without access tocloud resources. For example, some applications running on the userequipment device may be cloud applications, i.e., applications deliveredas a service over the Internet, while other applications may be storedand run on the user equipment device. In some embodiments, a user devicemay receive content from multiple cloud resources simultaneously. Forexample, a user device can stream audio from one cloud resource whiledownloading content from a second cloud resource. Or a user device candownload content from multiple cloud resources for more efficientdownloading. In some embodiments, user equipment devices can use cloudresources for processing operations such as the processing operationsperformed by processing circuitry described in relation to FIG. 4.

As referred herein, the term “in response to” refers to initiated as aresult of. For example, a first action being performed in response to asecond action may include interstitial steps between the first actionand the second action. As referred herein, the term “directly inresponse to” refers to caused by. For example, a first action beingperformed directly in response to a second action may not includeinterstitial steps between the first action and the second action.

FIG. 6 depicts an illustrative flowchart of a process for ensuringseamless access to restricted streaming media at a destination, inaccordance with some embodiments of the disclosure. Process 600 beginsat 602, where control circuitry 404 of user equipment 100 executes amedia guidance application that detects information that indicates thata user will be traveling from a first geographic location to a secondgeographic location. User equipment 100 may comprise functionality ofany of user television equipment 502, user computer equipment 504,wireless user communications device 506, or any other type of userequipment suitable for accessing content. The information may bedetected from electronic communication 102, as was described above andbelow.

Process 600 may continue to 604, where the media guidance applicationmay, in response to the detecting, access a playlist indicated by aprofile of the user that indicates a plurality of streaming media thatthe user intends to consume. The playlist and profile may be storedlocally at storage 408, or remotely at media guidance data source 518 ormedia content source 516, which are accessible by way of communicationsnetwork 514. The playlist and profile are described in greater detail inthe foregoing.

Process 600 may continue to 606, where the media guidance applicationmay compare data corresponding to each streaming media of the pluralityof streaming media to entries of a database to determine whether eachstreaming media of the plurality of streaming media is accessible to theuser at the second geographic location. The database may be mediacontent source 516 or media guidance data source 518 (accessible bycommunications network 514), and may indicate whether contentrestrictions exist, or whether media is available, in any given country,as described in the foregoing. The database may be specific to a mediaprovider, as described in the foregoing.

Process 600 may continue to 608, where the media guidance applicationmay determine that a subset of the plurality of media is not accessibleto the user at the second geographic location. For example, thedetermination may be made based on the subset being indicated as notavailable by the database, as described with reference to 606. Process600 may continue to 610, where, in response to determining that thesubset is not accessible to the user at the second geographic location,the media guidance application may download each media of the subset.For example, the media guidance application may download each media ofthe subset by way of communications network 514 from media contentsource 516 to storage 408 of user equipment 100.

FIG. 7 depicts an illustrative flowchart of a process for determiningthat the user will be traveling from the first geographic location tothe second geographic location, in accordance with some embodiments ofthe disclosure. Process 700 begins at 702, where the media guidanceapplication begins a process for determining that the information thatindicates that the user will be traveling from the first geographiclocation to the second geographic location (e.g., a subroutine for 602or 608). Process 700 continues to 704, where the media guidanceapplication of user equipment 100 receives an electronic communicationthat is addressed to the user of user equipment 100, such as electroniccommunication 102.

Process 700 may continue to 706, where the media guidance applicationdetermines that content of the electronic communication (e.g.,electronic communication 102) references travel. For example, an e-mailsuch as electronic communication 102 may indicate that a user is goingto travel to Milan, Italy (e.g., destination 110). This determinationwas described in further detail in the foregoing. Process 700 maycontinue to 708, where the media guidance application may identify,based on the profile, a home address of the first user. For example, theprofile, which may be stored on storage 408, may indicate a home addressof the first user.

Process 700 may continue to 710, where the media guidance applicationmay parse the content of the electronic communication to identify anaddress other than the home address. For example, if the home address isin New York, USA, and electronic communication 102 indicates both NewYork, USA, and Milan, Italy, the media guidance application may learnthat Milan, Italy is an address other than the home address, and thus isa travel destination. Thus, process 700 may continue to 712, where, inresponse to identifying the address other than the home address, themedia guidance application may determine the second geographic locationto be the address other than the home address. The media guidanceapplication may thereafter execute other functionality described hereinto ensure that content that is restricted in Milan, Italy is availableto the user while the user is in Milan, Italy.

FIG. 8 depicts an illustrative flowchart of a process for ensuringcontinued access to restricted subset of media at a second geographiclocation, in accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure. Process800 begins at 802, where the media guidance application executed bycontrol circuitry 404 of user equipment 100 begins a process forensuring continued access to restricted subset of media at secondgeographic location. Process 800 continues to 804, where the mediaguidance application may identify respective locations where arespective downloadable file corresponding to each streaming media ofthe plurality of streaming media is available for downloading. Forexample, the media guidance application may determine that downloadablefiles are available from media content source 516, which may be adatabase for one or more media asset stores or free repositories, suchas the Apple iTunes store, or a library that allows free downloading orborrowing of digital media.

Process 800 may continue to 806, where the media guidance applicationmay determine whether the respective downloadable file requirespurchase. If the respective downloadable file does not require purchase,process 800 may continue to 808, where the media guidance applicationmay automatically download the respective downloadable file. If therespective downloadable file does require purchase, process 800 maycontinue to 810, where the media guidance application may prompt theuser (e.g., by way of prompt 106) as to whether the user authorizespurchase of the respective downloadable file, or the media guidanceapplication may automatically approve or deny the purchase based onpredefined settings, as is described in the foregoing.

It should be noted that processes 600-800 or any step thereof could beperformed on, or provided by, any of the devices shown in FIGS. 1 and4-5. For example, any of processes 600-800 may be executed by controlcircuitry 404 (FIG. 4) as instructed by control circuitry implemented onuser equipment 502, 504, and/or 506 (FIG. 5) in order to ensure seamlessaccess to restricted media. In addition, one or more steps of processes600-800 may be incorporated into or combined with one or more steps ofany other process or embodiment.

It is contemplated that the steps or descriptions of each of FIGS. 6-8may be used with any other embodiment of this disclosure. In addition,the steps and descriptions described in relation to FIGS. 6-8 may bedone in alternative orders or in parallel to further the purposes ofthis disclosure. For example, each of these steps may be performed inany order or in parallel or substantially simultaneously to reduce lagor increase the speed of the system or method. Furthermore, it should benoted that any of the devices or equipment discussed in relation toFIGS. 1 and 4-5 could be used to perform one or more of the steps inFIGS. 6-8.

It will be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art that methodsinvolved in the present invention may be embodied in a computer programproduct that includes a computer-usable and/or readable medium. Forexample, such a computer-usable medium may consist of a read-only memorydevice, such as a CD-ROM disk or conventional ROM device, or a randomaccess memory, such as a hard drive device or a computer diskette,having a computer-readable program code stored thereon. It should alsobe understood that methods, techniques, and processes involved in thepresent invention may be executed using processing circuitry. Forinstance, determining that a user is traveling to a destination may beperformed, e.g., by processing circuitry 406 of FIG. 4. The processingcircuitry, for instance, may be a general purpose processor, acustomized integrated circuit (e.g., an ASIC), or a field-programmablegate array (FPGA) within user equipment 400, media content source 516,or media guidance data source 518. For example, a profile, as describedherein, may be stored in, and retrieved from, storage 408 of FIG. 4, ormedia guidance data source 518 of FIG. 5. Furthermore, processingcircuitry, or a computer program, may update settings associated with auser, such as a user's download preferences, stored within storage 408of FIG. 4 or media guidance data source 518 of FIG. 5.

The processes discussed above are intended to be illustrative and notlimiting. One skilled in the art would appreciate that the steps of theprocesses discussed herein may be omitted, modified, combined, and/orrearranged, and any additional steps may be performed without departingfrom the scope of the invention. More generally, the above disclosure ismeant to be exemplary and not limiting. Only the claims that follow aremeant to set bounds as to what the present invention includes.Furthermore, it should be noted that the features and limitationsdescribed in any one embodiment may be applied to any other embodimentherein, and flowcharts or examples relating to one embodiment may becombined with any other embodiment in a suitable manner, done indifferent orders, or done in parallel. In addition, the systems andmethods described herein may be performed in real time. It should alsobe noted, the systems and/or methods described above may be applied to,or used in accordance with, other systems and/or methods.

While some portions of this disclosure may make reference to“convention,” any such reference is merely for the purpose of providingcontext to the invention(s) of the instant disclosure, and does not formany admission as to what constitutes the state of the art.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method for providing content, the methodcomprising: determining, by a media guidance application, based onelectronic communications of a user, that the user will travel from afirst geographic location to a second geographic location; identifying,by the media guidance application, a plurality of content items that arelikely to be consumed at the second geographic location; accessing, bythe media guidance application, a plurality of user equipment owned bythe user, each of the plurality of user equipment having a size and acapacity; selecting, by the media guidance application, a userequipment, from the plurality of user equipment, most suitable to travelwith to the second geographic location based on the corresponding sizeand capacity of each of the plurality of user equipment; and causing tobe stored, by the media guidance application, on the selected userequipment, the identified plurality of content items before the usertravels to the second geographic location.
 2. The method of claim 1,wherein determining that the user will travel from the first geographiclocation to the second geographic location comprises parsing electroniccommunications from a third party platform indicative that the user willbe traveling to the second geographic location.
 3. The method of claim2, wherein parsing electronic communications from a third party platformcomprises identifying at least one of the second geographic location, adate of travel, an airline name, or a purchase statement.
 4. The methodof claim 1, wherein identifying the plurality of content items comprisesdetermining that the plurality of content items is accessible to theuser at the second geographic location.
 5. The method of claim 4,wherein determining that the plurality of content items is accessible tothe user at the second geographic location comprises comparing datacorresponding to each content item of the plurality of content items toa database indicating geographic content restrictions for a contentprovider.
 6. The method of claim 1, wherein identifying the userequipment, from the plurality of user equipment, is based on at leastone of weight, memory capacity, and display screen size of theidentified user equipment.
 7. The method of claim 1, wherein causing tobe stored, on the selected user equipment, the identified plurality ofcontent items before the user travels to the second geographic locationcomprises transmitting instructions to store the identified plurality ofcontent items before the user travels to the second geographic location.8. The method of claim 1, wherein identifying user equipment, from theplurality of user equipment, is based on a historical record of userequipment used for travel.
 9. The method of claim 1, wherein providingfor storage the identified plurality of content items to be consumedcomprises determining to prioritize a subset of the plurality of contentitems for storage, wherein determining to prioritize the subset of theplurality of content items for storage comprises: determining a cost foreach content item of the plurality of content items; and determiningthat the subset of the plurality of content items are lower in costrelative to other content items of the plurality of content items.
 10. Asystem for providing content, the system comprising: control circuitryexecuting a media guidance application configured to: determine, basedon electronic communications of a user, that the user will travel from afirst geographic location to a second geographic location; identify aplurality of content items that are likely to be consumed at the secondgeographic location; access a plurality of user equipment owned by theuser, each of the plurality of user equipment having a size and acapacity; select a user equipment, from the plurality of user equipment,most suitable to travel with to the second geographic location based onthe corresponding size and capacity of each of the plurality of userequipment; and communications circuitry configured to cause to bestored, on the selected user equipment, the identified plurality ofcontent items before the user travels to the second geographic location.11. The system of claim 10, wherein the control circuitry is configuredto determine that the user will travel from the first geographiclocation to the second geographic location by parsing electroniccommunications from a third party platform indicative that the user willbe traveling to the second geographic location, wherein parsingelectronic communications from a third party platform comprisesidentifying at least one of the second geographic location, a date oftravel, an airline name, or a purchase statement.
 12. The system ofclaim 10, wherein the control circuitry is configured to identify theplurality of content items by determining that the plurality of contentitems is accessible to the user at the second geographic location. 13.The system of claim 12, wherein determining that the plurality ofcontent items is accessible to the user at the second geographiclocation comprises comparing data corresponding to each content item ofthe plurality of content items to a database indicating geographiccontent restrictions for a content provider.
 14. The system of claim 10,wherein the control circuitry is configured to identify the userequipment, from the plurality of user equipment, based on at least oneof weight, memory capacity, and display screen size of the identifieduser equipment.
 15. The system of claim 10, wherein the communicationscircuitry is configured to cause to be stored, on the selected userequipment, the identified plurality of content items before the usertravels to the second geographic location by transmitting instructionsto store the identified plurality of content items before the usertravels to the second geographic location.
 16. The system of claim 10,wherein the control circuitry is configured to identify user equipment,from the plurality of user equipment, based on a historical record ofuser equipment used for travel.
 17. The system of claim 10, wherein thecommunication circuitry is configured to provide for storage theidentified plurality of content items to be consumed by determining toprioritize a subset of the plurality of content items for storage,wherein determining to prioritize the subset of the plurality of contentitems for storage comprises: determining a cost for each content item ofthe plurality of content items; and determining that the subset of theplurality of content items are lower in cost relative to other contentitems of the plurality of content items.
 18. The method of claim 1,wherein selecting the user equipment most suitable to travel withcomprises identifying user equipment that the user travelled with duringprevious travel.
 19. The method of claim 1, wherein selecting the userequipment most suitable to travel is performed automatically without auser input designating the user equipment that the user intends totravel with.
 20. The method of claim 1, wherein selecting the userequipment most suitable to travel with is performed without any userinput.